You might recall that I mentioned I get the seasonal blues this time of year, so finding things to feel good about is really an effort for me. You might also recall that in my sponsored post for Kmart, I mentioned that a big chunk of what I bought was for Toys for Tots. It turns out we were able to do something a bit more direct.

A friend of the family volunteered to take the toys to a donation point for us, and so we gave the big trash bag of mostly boys’ toys to her. She went on her way, doing her daily errands, including stopping for coffee with a friend who’d been going through some troubles. This woman had received a divorce the year before, and her ex-husband had stopped paying her anything after losing his job. The woman was distraught because she really wasn’t making ends meet, but worse, she reported to our friend, she couldn’t buy any toys for her boys for Christmas this year.

It’s going to be a strange year for people, and some folks who never thought they’d find themselves homeless might be in that boat. With all the various economic storms in the air, I’m sure it will not be unheard of that you or I will know someone who is forced into homelessness. It’s great to see a service like Montreal-based Homeless Nation that gives services, voice, and a sense of digital place for people finding themselves in this situation.

You might have heard of the site. They won both the Canadian New Media Award (CNMA) and the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) Award for Excellence in New Communications Award for New Media Creation/Social Media Production, so it’s not like they’re going unnoticed. The organization has been around since 2003, providing information on services, events, missing people notices, and much more.

Jennifer Leggio is training for a marathon and working to help fight leukemia and lymphoma at the same time. She’s looking to raise $10,000, and she’s got a creative approach to doing it.

My cousin, Todd, died from Leukemia when I was a kid. I have weird/funny memories of him, including the fact my Mom made us Star Trek uniforms. I was Kirk, my brother Thom was Spock, and Todd was a red shirt. Turned out that life was pretty much that way for all three of us, as a side note.

In just under two hours, we raised over $500 US for a cancer walk sponsorship for Susan. It was fun getting the word out via Twitter, and I’m SO very grateful to all the people who contributed to the cause. You might remember we sent a woman to college using Twitter for half of the fundraising. This was a similar mechanism. Basically, I tweeted, and asked people to retweet the request until we raised what I set out to raise.

Understanding where to give donations is always tricky. There’s overhead to consider. There are worries about where the best good can be done. And we often don’t realize the impact we make in other people’s lives.